


i can't sleep

by rachelsprospera



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Unrequited Crush, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 18:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17565584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelsprospera/pseuds/rachelsprospera
Summary: Lyla hasn’t been able to sleep for… how long, now? She ponders this after jerking awake from a light, sleep-deprived doze. Dreams of Sean and Daniel had passed before her eyelids, but only in fragments.





	i can't sleep

Lyla can’t fucking sleep.

She hasn’t been able to for… how long, now? She ponders this after jerking awake from a light, sleep-deprived doze. There’s sweat beading her forehead and her heart is pounding in her chest like she’s just run a mile or ten. Dreams of Sean and Daniel had passed before her eyelids, but only in fragments. She can still remember Sean’s laugh and that stupid smell that always clung to his clothes like he was a walking car freshener or something. It had been weeks— no, practically centuries, it felt like— since she’d been near him. No more skate nights. No more game nights. No more showing up at the Diaz house impromptu to have board game Saturdays.

And god, she missed Daniel. No matter how bad he and Sean’s squabble, Daniel had always been happy to see her. From tickling his armpits until he collapsed into a fit of giggles to helping him with his science project until Sean got home after track, Daniel had been practically family to her. To think that he, too, had witnessed Estaban’s murder… that he might be cold and hungry, or much worse…

She’s haunted. Lyla can’t sleep, and she’s haunted.

Over a month had passed since Esteban’s murder and she’d heard things-- the alleged ‘break in’ at some redneck’s gas station for starters. For all she knows, Sean and Daniel could be dead in a ditch somewhere. Or worse.

With the racist ass comments she’s been fighting just on Sean’s Facebook page alone, she can tell it’s not safe for them out there. Probably not anywhere, really.

She kicks her comforter off her legs and sits up, rubbing at her eyes. Her chest feels the familiar pang— a need, really. She wants to be at Sean’s side, kicked back on the porch and sharing a smoke. _But,_  she remembers with a hollow ache in her chest and a painful lump forming in her throat, _Sean is God only knows where_. _Not here_.

Lyla crawls out of bed like a zombie. She snags the weed pipe from her drawer and stumbles down the hallway in a daze.

Checking her phone shows the time. 3 _:12 A.M._  Far too late for her dad to be up still. Both of her parents would freak if they knew she was up and out of bed again. She’s been to the clinic in Bellevue a lot within the past couple years, but this? This called for regular trips and therapy. She knows she should be grateful she hasn’t been fully admitted.

Her therapist says that having the capacity to empathize and care so much is a good quality. That being able to imagine what Sean and Daniel are going through is something valuable. Lyla supposes it probably is. She’s always been the instigator in the friend group— the one to keep everyone together. The cool one. The reliable one.

Sean, however, had always been the opposite. Over the years she’d come to realize he was more independent. More of a lone wolf. Sean loved her and she knew it, but he didn’t need her like she needed him and it was obvious. Sometimes more so than other times.

Now, with only one phone call from him since the incident, it feels even more true than ever. She’s hardly slept a wink since, and wherever the boys are she knows it’s probably Hell. But what could she do for them? Nothing, aside from holding the fort down and getting grilled by the cops repeatedly.

They’d pulled her out of English class just a week ago to ‘ask her a few new questions’. It’s a never-ending circle of bullshit and she knows it. Day in, day out. New internet articles about how the cop who died had a family or how he was such a good Samaritan.

A  _Samaritan_  who had pulled the trigger on someone defenseless. And now Esteban is dead and the boys are on the run and Lyla is more alone than she’s ever felt in her life.

She pads across the dark living room, flipping the light switch on to the porch outside. She steps out. The breeze is cool and crisp, filling her lungs. The sensation of the air caressing her cheeks is a welcome one— she’s still burning up under her sweatshirt from all the nightmares and anxiety.

Collapsing onto the edge of the porch, she fishes the lighter out of her pocket and holds it to the pipe. Putting the end to her mouth, she suctions her mouth and inhales the fumes eagerly.

She only coughs a little. Tears are starting to roll down her cheeks and her bare arms and legs have goose bumps from the cold. She wants Sean back. _Needs_ Sean back.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket. When she fishes it back out, she sees Eric’s name lighting up the screen. _“u awake?”_

Against her better judgement, she types back.

 

_L: “u 2? man, don’t tell me you’re up this late because of stats”_

_E: “you know why i’m up, dude”_

_L: “fuck. me too. do you think he’s.. alive? okay?”_

_E: “idk. maybe”_

_L: “he has to be”_

 

She sets the phone down and takes another puff. She shivers.

She can’t feel her toes.

 

* * *

 

“Dude, move over.” Lyla hardly gives him any warning before flopping down on the right end of the couch, sitting partially on his leg. Sean had always had a bad habit of spreading out across the furniture if she was gone so much as three seconds to go take a piss. “Did you start the movie yet? Sean, we have to at least start Chamber of Secrets. How are we supposed to get ideas for Adam’s _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stoner_ party? It’s in less than two weeks.”

Sean sticks his tongue out at her, looking up from his phone. “Get the remote yourself, nerd. You were just standing up.”

“Um, I don’t think so,” Lyla jokes. “Have you ever heard of having a guest? You don’t get to just invite someone over and keep being a couch potato.”

Sean gives a dramatic sigh. “Fiiiine. So needy. What kind of popcorn do you want this time, punk?”

“Uh, is that even a question? Kettle corn, of _course_. What kind of barbarian do you take me for?”

Sean knocks her legs as he passes by her to head towards the kitchen. He seizes the empty popcorn bowl on the way. “Just find the movie on HBO while I do this.”

Lyla obliges. By the time she finds the title with the search function and the Diaz’s shoddy remote, the heavenly smell of Orville Redenbacher’s kettle corn fills the air.

When he returns with the bowl, it’s all Lyla can do not to snatch it from his hands. “Yessss. Dude, _this_ is why I hang out with you. That dank popcorn.”

Sean rolls his eyes but he’s smiling. “You’re like this with tacos, too. When will the Lyla reign of terror end?”

“Trick question— it doesn’t.” She hits play on the remote and the two of them settle in for the movie.

Sean is sitting closer to her than he was. It’s probably not intentional, but with him this close to her, she can see the details of his face up close. His dark eyelashes. The couple freckle-moles on his left cheek. _Why the hell are you even noticing this?_ she thinks crossly. She’s known him since they were kids and she’s not once thought about something as bizarre and meaningless as his eyelashes.

She doesn’t think about it again until near the end of the movie. Harry has just entered the Chamber of Secrets when she notices Sean has fallen asleep.

Somehow, over the course of the last half hour, he’d been sliding towards her more and more until his head was resting on her shoulder. She feels the weight of it now. His breath is warm on her collarbone when he exhales. She’d think this was weird if she didn’t know Sean falls asleep with his mouth slightly open sometimes.

 _No way_ , she thinks crossly. _Why is everything so warm?_

Almost hesitantly, she pulls her arm out from under him and places it around him instead. _Are they… cuddling?_

They can’t be. But her cheeks are hot and she doesn’t have any kind of explanation.

 

* * *

 

Lyla lays on her back in bed, trying for the hundredth time to go back to sleep. Her blinds are cracked enough that the light from passing cars occasionally shine through. She watches passively, knowing full well what time it was. It was late enough (or early enough, depending on how you look at it) that cars were starting to populate the road.

Tears roll silently down her cheeks again.

She misses Sean and she loves him. But there’s a gaping hole that feels like it reaches down into her very soul and she can’t explain it.

So she just cries.

 


End file.
